National Community Advisory Committee Convening

Aware that health foundations with community advisory committees (CACs) have particular expertise in engaging with their communities, Grantmakers In Health and Con Alma Health Foundation are convening representatives of such foundations to share strategies, learn from one another, and offer solutions that the larger world of philanthropy might borrow and benefit from. Our featured speaker is Scott Benbow (www.scottbenbow.com), philanthropy specialist and former staff attorney for Consumers Union.  

Although the program is designed for CACs, we are hopeful that in addition to at least one CAC member, a board member, and a staff member from your foundation will be able to join us in Santa Fe.  

Additionally, we are seeking input on a program for the event. Among the topics we are considering are:  

• Strategic planning to help foundations explore and clarify values, mission, and goals; helping to align values, mission, and goals with available resources; CAC input in funding strategies and decisionmaking;  
• Enhancing community-engagement practices to increase impact of foundation grant making, struggles in acting as a liaison with communities;  
• Evaluating foundation grantmaking processes, training in grantmaking best practices, structuring program evaluation so that foundations can measure results and learn from experiences;  
• Skill building to strengthen foundation-related skills in CAC members, sharing best practices to enhance foundation effectiveness and accountability; and 
• Program design, including exploring community needs, identifying philanthropic opportunities to address such needs, and facilitating foundation giving that builds capacity in grant recipients, leverages resources, and adheres to best philanthropic practices; using CAC self-assessment strategies to determine how successful community engagement has been.  

If any, or all, of these topics resonate with your foundation's present and/or future needs, we would like to hear from you by March 17. Registration will open on March 1. 

For more information or to respond to the request for input, contact:

Dolores E. Roybal, Executive Director
Con Alma Health Foundation
Email: registration@conalma.org
505.438.0776, Ext. 2
www.conalma.org

Related reading: GIH's Inside Stories piece "Making the Most Out of Community Advisory Committees" takes a look at the sometimes bumpy path to effective use of CACs, offering lessons to all foundations in their efforts to elicit community input on their work.

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